Commission: Final Deadline Extended to September 30, 2022 for Entities Benefiting from Bulk SMS Service to Register Their Sender Names in the Electronic System

The Communications and Information Technology Commission called on all entities benefiting from the bulk SMS service to communicate with the SMS service providers they are contracted with to register their sender names in the electronic system before the end of the final deadline, which has been extended to September 30, 2022, in order to avoid disruption of services that depend on the SMS service, as after this date, sending of any short text message (SMS) bearing a sender name not registered in the system will be stopped.

The Commission explained that this comes as part of its role in regulating the sector and protecting its users from the misuse of bulk text messages, and from fraudulent and spam text messages, noting that the extension of the deadline came in consideration of the interests of government entities and entities benefiting from SMS services in general. The Commission has set this final deadline for registering all current sender names in the system and fulfilling all registration requirements, after having worked with SMS service providers to establish governance for registering and verifying the sender names of beneficiary entities through an electronic system using blockchain technology since March 20, 2022, while at the same time thanking entities committed to registering their sender names in the electronic system, as the registration rate exceeded 88% of the total sender names.

The Commission also affirmed the need for the beneficiary entity to communicate with all the message service providers it is contracted with and provide them with the required data and documents, in order to avoid disruption of any services dependent on SMS, noting that it disclaims responsibility for any effects resulting from stopping those messages as a result of non-compliance with registering sender names in the system.